Diary of a Network Geek

More video shorts in the low-budget scifi vein.

Thanks to technology, low-budget does not mean low-quality.
I learned that when I took the chance and invested in the Ghosts With Shit Jobs film project on Kickstarter. So many of those projects never finish or don’t bear the promised fruit that it really was a risk that nothing would come of it. Instead, when I got was a cool, indie DVD and the joy of knowing I encouraged a really creative person’s vision and career. That artist, Jim Munroe, is kind of a creative genius, in my opinion. I learned about him via his fantastic graphic novel, Therefore, Repent!, and he’s followed up with other movies. Check out his websites for more details.
But, I’ve already told you about Ghosts With Shit Jobs last week! This week, I have a new creator to share with you, gentle readers! His name is Pete Majarich and you may already know him for his work at A Movie Poster A Day from 2016. But, today, I want you to take a look at his one-man, scifi short, featured at Lost At E Minor called The Visitor. He filmed it with just a Mavic Air drone and a knock-off astronaut helmet from eBay in the deserts of southern Utah. It’s very short, but very powerful, and just the thing for a quick break on a Friday.
Check it out!

This post first appeared on Use Your Words!

Legion

Originally uploaded by Network Geek

I saw Legion on Friday.

Wow.
This movie sucked out loud, on ice.
For real, this was one of the worst movies I have seen in a long time.  And, yes, that was a huge disappointment to me because I was really looking forward to a movie about the end times and angels and the powerful, smiting retribution of God.  Well, there were angels in it, anyway.

So, right, here’s the the basic plot; it’s the end times, but not really like we’re used to seeing or hearing about, and only one baby can save us, but his mother isn’t all that into having him and God has sent an army of angels to kill the baby and pretty much anyone along the way who tries to stop them.  Sounds like a winner, right?  Yeah, you’d think.  But, somehow they managed to take that premise, a fairly decent cast and screw it up at every turn.
First of all, Michael, chief of God’s angels, essentially rebels to come to Earth, make himself human, and try to save the mother of the implied second coming of Christ.  Not a bad start, really, except that no one ever cops to the fact that the baby is the reborn Prince of Peace.  Oh, and also?  That whole rebel angel thing.  That’s been done and, uh, Lucifer, the angel of the morning star, already did that and was cast out of heaven.  So, really, that was kind of a hard-sell to me, Michael rebelling.  And, uh, pretty well that’s the entire plot.  Angels coming to kill unborn kid, rebel angel out to stop them and the rag-tag group of human misfits who sort of tag along for the ride and cliched object lessons.  And, since I cannot in all good conscience recommend that anyone waste one, thin dime on this movie, I am totally going to ruin it for you now.  The rebel angel succeeds and the kid is born, humankind is saved, his parents are redeemed and become what seem to be red-neck, Christian Identity, gun-toting survivalists who apparently discover Utah.  And, now, thankfully, you don’t need to see this film.

So, if you’re still with me, here’s a theological issue I had with the movie.
Michael, the newest rebel angel, repeats several times that he’s giving God what He needs, not what He’s asking for.
Uh, hello?  What?  Are you implying that God doesn’t know what He wants?  That some angel with an English lisp and Enochian tattoos actually know better than God what God’s mind is and His needs are?  Seriously?  Because, then, God pretty well couldn’t be God, since that’s sort of defined by being all-powerful and all-seeing and all-knowing and if one of His creations knows better than He does then He can’t be those things.  Right?  And, really, that was just the most obvious and egregious theological failing, but it wasn’t the only one.  It’s just that one distracted me so, so much from the rest of the film that the rest of them aren’t worth mentioning.

And, really, the potential good parts of the film were bad, too.  Like the action and the manifestation of angels and all the ways that subtle morality lessons that never actually manifested.  Oh, and the crappy dialog.  And, the the bad acting by pretty much everyone except the baby, who I’m fairly certain was special effects.
And, did I mention that the movie was filled with badly failed cliches?  Because it was.  I mean it was clogged with them like an overflowing cinematic toilet.  It was bad, bad, bad.

Honestly, this movie was so bad I cannot believe it actually got made.
If you were thinking about going to see this film, slap yourself, have a stiff drink and go see The Book of Eli instead.  You’ll be happy you avoided this one.  And, I would say, don’t even bother to rent this stinker.  Truly.  It was bad in more ways than even I can list.
Do NOT waste two hours of your life going to see this movie.

Wow, there’ve been a lot of stories about Novell in the past two days!

Let’s see, where to start…. First off, Novell whupped Micro$oft to the tune of $536 Million, according to this press release from the networking giant. Apparently, Novell and Micro$oft agreed to “settle potential antitrust litigation related to Novell’s NetWare operating system in exchange for $536 million in cash.” Hmm, not a bad deal. I wonder what that will do to their stock? What’s even more interesting to me, is that Novell also announced it will file “an antitrust suit against Microsoft in the United States District Court in Utah seeking unspecified damages in connection with alleged harm to Novell’s WordPerfect application software business in the mid-1990s.” More cash? One can only hope.

In other Novell news, my favorite Open Source company has released a “new” Linux desktop. Yes, that’s right, they’ve got a Linux desktop, with the option to purchase support. I guess there really are advantages to living way out in Orem and not having anything else to do during the winter months but think! If you follow that link, by the way, you can download a free trial. I know I will be!

Yea, Novell! You go!

Orrin’s at it again….

Look, I mainly see myself as a Republican. Okay, maybe a “Reform” Republican. A Republican with a social conscience? Anyway, in spiet of my Republican leanings, Orrin Hatch and his cronies piss me off. Didn’t we learn enough about theivery at Watergate? According to this story on WiredNews, no, we didn’t.
One of Orrin’s staffers has been caught with their hand in the Democratic cookie-jar. Obviously, this kind of thing goes on more than we’d like to think in Washington, but most of the time the crooks are better at not being caught. Of course, we have lots of evidence that Orrin’s not exactly tech savy, so maybe he didn’t understand what his staffers were doing. Hmm, maybe not. I’d like to believe that he’s just that ignorant, but I can’t quite make myself go there. So, now, he’s distanced himself from that staffer while the Senate “sergeant at arms” launches an investigation. Of course, that poor sap will be crucified for Orrin’s career, but the question is, how much did Orrin know?

Damn, it’s really looking like it’s time to vote Libertarian. And, after my birthday, I’ll be old enough to run for President. Hmm, maybe in a couple of years….

With subpoenas this time, not just FUD.

(That’s Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, by the way.) Well, according to this article on ZDNet, SCO has filed subpoenas with the U.S. District Court in Utah, targeting Novell; Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel; Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation; Stuart Cohen, chief executive of the Open Source Development Labs; and John Horsley, general counsel of Transmeta.
The article said that IBM responded to the Linux-related lawsuit by asking a federal judge to order SCO to identify illegal source code and serving four other companies with subpoenas of its own. Though it wasn’t clear if they filed before or after SCO. In either case, I hope this gets resolved soon. I’m tired of hearing about it and anyone who knows Linux knows that they have no leg to stand on. Oh, well, at least it gets Linux in the news….